An arrogant and condescending Barack Obama [is there any other kind?] spoke at Colgate University, acting like he was shocked that President Trump banned CNN, MS Now, and Politico. This is the man who tried to ban Fox News and constantly attacked them.
FOIA emails and reports show his administration tried to exclude Fox from a 2009 pool interview with the TARP pay czar. There were many other instances.
Barack tightly controlled White House photographs and attacked journalists who didn’t toe the line.
Former President Barack Obama on President Trump’s White House press ban: “I’m trying to think what would have happened if I had said, you know what, Fox News, you’re out of here! It’s unimaginable!” pic.twitter.com/R1pmoVasEz
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 20, 2026
While a strong federal shield bill quickly became a pipe dream under Obama, a patchwork of state laws and common-law privileges in some federal court districts still provided some protection to journalists called to testify against their sources. Unfortunately, Obama’s Justice Department then moved to attack ‘reporter’s privilege’ in the courts as well.
When Obama came into office, New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner James Risen had been facing a subpoena under the Bush administration for a story in his book about a botched CIA operation that handed over almost complete nuclear bomb blueprints to Iran.
Many were expecting Obama’s Justice Department, led by then-Attorney General Eric Holder, to drop the subpoena. Instead, they renewed it and, in the process, ended up destroying reporter’s privilege in one of the most important federal circuits in the country.
Obama is so hypocritical here that no words adequately describe it, unless you want to call him a bald-faced liar.
And here is a 2013 report on Freedom of the Press Warrior Barack Obama’s admin spying on Fox News reporter James Rosen.
CBS News: “For the first time ever, a presidential administration is treating news reporting like a crime and a reporter like a criminal suspect.”
“The level… https://t.co/V92IsrIZFL pic.twitter.com/pempB7JEwe
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) September 20, 2026
Obama also hid from the press.
MUST WATCH. With all the gaslighting going on about Obama and his supposed transparency with the press, this is the a great reminder of the truth.
2013. CNN’s Brian Stelter does a segment on the growing frustration of the press over not being given access to Obama.
Stelter’s… pic.twitter.com/8tUFpwDuKO
— MAZE (@mazemoore) September 20, 2026